Banking – whether commercial banking or central banking – works best when it is competitive, transparent, and responsible. The more central banking is shielded from public scrutiny and protected from the rule of civil law, the more damaging it becomes for the economy and society.

The Fed has had one great success: it is by far the largest funder of academic research in monetary and macroeconomics, employing hundreds of economists, financing conferences and seminars, providing paid consultancies, and so on. Is it any wonder that the majority of academic monetary and macroeconomists support the status quo?

The Fed is in need of serious reform and should be subject to competition and accountability. The Paul-Grayson bill is a welcome first step toward this goal. American citizens have a right to demand the same standards of transparency and responsibility from the Fed as other government agencies. A government bureaucracy that cannot function unless it is shrouded in secrecy and is not held accountable to the elected representatives of the people has no place in a free society.

I second the great link to Taibbi's article. I didn't like LIESman before, but now I'm absolutely totally disgusted by the man who has now been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that his name is appropriate for his character.

Here's another big thanks for the article on Liesman. I lived and worked in Eastern Europe in the 90's and I can tell you unequivocally that there were probably tens (perhaps hundreds) of thousands of people exactly like him operating in every field (finance, industry, law, consulting, venture capital, publishing, you name it) throughout the region. The authors really nail the type: guys living in suites in the Marriott, never venturing out of the capital city, dealing only with people who speak English (not even being able to say "please" or "thank you" in the local language), getting pissed when you can't get a bottle of A1 to go with your steak and turning up your nose at all local cuisine, etc. A really enterprising author could, if so inclined, totally blow the roof off of what goes on in these situations where Westerners (not just Americans, mind you) come to town to show the poor locals how it's done. A great place to start - the U.S. aid agencies, especially USAID. If the American people had any idea of how much waste, fraud and abuse was going on there...